"Under the Bridge" & "Polaroid"

Here are two poems, one new and one old. There seems to be a common theme about disappearing, or so I think. Or are they just nostalgic words longing for yesterday? I’m not sure.

Under the Bridge

That evening under the bridge,
with a calm summer breeze against
pendulummed feet, we talked.

Of what? I don’t recall. Our sentences:
dream-bubble-currents churned
in the undertow below.

My actions were set in stone that day,
call it Houdini-speak, how I would not
tell you about my vanishing act.

Like that bottle of wine we uncorked and drank
then tossed near the breakwall only to be
consumed again.

Eighteen winters later, with bloodlines drawn,
there’s no message in that bottle, no Ouija board
or séance to be held, only spring’s thaw—

Where water rushes inward and pushes back the vowels
as I think about what you would have said, what you did say,

“I object—”

And for one brief moment down on Emerald Street,
I thought I saw my open-mouthed smile pressed
against the surface of your eye.

Polaroid

Someone’s fingers are itchin’
to pull the trigger. Call it:
The chemical rub-out before
the sun does its work. Still,
a middle class family
appears (such a rarity
these days). The dull colors
frozen like a Ted Turner classic.
What happened that night is momentarily
forgotten; They are ready
to celebrate with two candles lit,
a four, a five, sunk into Mother’s
cake. The youngest boy emerges
from solitary confinement, his wish
exhaled, gone in a flash.


*Currently listening to the Moody Blues "Days of Future Passed."